More than 11 million votes were cast, with parents and educators nationwide working feverishly to drum up support for their schools. The 600-boy elementary school on 570 Crown St. came in 18th, with 139,246 votes, according to Kohl’s Facebook fan page.

But the Chabad yeshiva in Crown Heights was unceremoniously bounced from the Top 20 after the chain’s auditor disqualified a chunk of its votes when the "Kohl’s Cares" contest ended Sept. 3.

In a bid to lure voters, the yeshiva raffled off an iPod and even created a Web site to tout the raffle. It explained that people who got five others to vote for the school would get additional raffle tickets.

Shmarya Rosenberg, who writes the popular Jewish blog failedmessiah.com and has been a frequent critic of the Chabad movement of the Lubavitch Hasidim, also charged that the yeshiva broke the rules by buying votes from a so-called "vote broker."

"The schools would pay him money based on how many votes he delivered. He could get people from outside the country to vote for the school," said Rosenberg, referring to a broker he spoke with but would not identify.